Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Genocide Watch has creatively adapted its work to
predict, prevent, stop and punish genocide and other forms of mass murder while ensuring the
safety of our staff and our Alliance Against Genocide member organizations. Genocide Watch staff
must work virtually, rather than in person in an office. Rather than allowing the pandemic to
handicap our work, Genocide Watch has thrived.
Using the power of virtual communications, Genocide Watch has conducted hundreds of meetings
with its ten person staff in the US, Canada, the UK, and Spain. Our three-person Management
Team is located in Northern Virginia and Montreal, Canada. Genocide Watch has actively
participated in international meetings to plan projects for genocide prevention, including meetings
at the National Security Council, the State Department, and with Alliance partner organizations in
Washington DC, Nigeria, and Iraq.
Genocide Watch’s operational methodology to maintain timely and reliable information on threats
of genocide has four pillars: Staff Development, Digital Education, Virtual Communication, and
Revitalization of the Alliance Against Genocide.
Staff Development:
Genocide Watch has always relied on brilliant student interns to assist Dr. Gregory Stanton in
developing reports and educational resources on genocidal processes that are communicated to
policy makers to warn them when preventive action is needed. These student interns do not receive
monetary compensation, but they receive course credit for their work. Guided by his mentorship,
leadership, and breadth of experience, Dr. Stanton has created a highly sought after, formative
internship program that has launched many interns’ careers in genocide prevention.
Genocide Watch maintains a loyalty among its former interns that lasts for years. To ensure that
COVID-19 did not impede Genocide Watch’s ability to report on threats of genocides, in March
2020, three former Genocide Watch interns currently working in law, anti-human trafficking and
global public health organizations designed and developed a virtual internship program for the
Summer of 2020. They recruited ten extraordinary summer interns from universities around the
world. Several of the interns have Masters degrees in genocide studies, political science, and law,
and others are continuing their studies in masters or doctoral programs. Our interns are students in
subjects as diverse as mathematics, economics, journalism, public policy, and public health.
Utilising the interactive communications platform, Microsoft Teams, Dr. Stanton and the threeperson
Management Team trained the ten Summer Interns from the United States, Canada, the
United Kingdom and Spain. The Summer 2020 internship class has developed several new genocide
prevention resources. Genocide Watch intends to continue the virtual internship program in Fall
2020. We will sponsor virtual internships even after the COVID crisis has ended.
Virtual internships make it possible for Genocide Watch to benefit from the skills of students
around the world, including those who cannot afford to move to Washington, DC, and students who
are still engaged in taking courses or writing Masters or Ph.D, theses.
Digital Education:
Introduced by Genocide Watch’s Senior Program Manager,
Deanna Wilken, staff members have produced interactive
reports housed on the Timestream platform. Timestream is a
platform originally developed by the Ntrepid Corporation to
provide law enforcement and government policy agencies with
software to organize the histories of crimes, conflicts, and other
complex social processes. Ms. Wilken recognized that
Timestream is ideally suited to organize the detailed histories of
conflicts that have either resulted in or may lead to genocides.
It is an educational tool that can be very helpful to teachers
and students who are studying genocides.
It is more powerful than PowerPoint because it permits
one click access to supporting charts, photos, news articles, and
reports that enrich the presentation of historical data.
Click here to view Timestreams on
Myanmar’s Genocide of the Rohingya, and India’s threats to Muslims in Assam.
Co-created by interns Naveen Bhatia and Alexandra Sharp,
Genocide Watch has launched a new Podcast Series:
Conversations on Genocide. Genocide Watch has a Zoom licence
to record the audio and video of interviews. We subscribed to
SoundCloud to disseminate the podcasts to our listeners. Click
here to listen to the first episode, featuring Dr. Gregory Stanton,
the Founding President of Genocide Watch. Genocide Watch aims
to publish a new episode once a month and will be featuring
genocide experts and survivor testimonies.
Virtual Communication:
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Stanton has been
collaborating with key U.S. policy makers to plan U.S.
government actions to assist Nigeria in stopping
genocidal massacres against Christians in northeast and
central Nigeria. In June, Dr. Stanton spoke at the
National Security Council with former Congressman
Frank Wolf. They argued for a U.S. Special Envoy to
investigate the crimes against humanity in Nigeria. Dr.
Stanton also spoke at press conferences on the genocide
of Christians in Nigeria organized by In Defense of
Christians and by the International Campaign on Nigeria,
both Alliance Against Genocide members organizations.
Led by intern, Eric Ross, Genocide Watch created an interactive map illustrating the
increased frequency and intensity of Boko Haram, Fulani jihadist, and ISIS in West Africa
attacks against Christian civilian populations.
In June, Dr. Stanton’s statement on Turkey’s war crimes and crimes against humanity in northern
Syria was included as evidence in the US Commission on International Religious Freedom’s virtual
hearing on Safeguarding Religious Freedom in Northeast Syria.
To commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the Srebrenica Genocide, Dr. Stanton spoke about the
“Cost of Denial” in a special webinar event for the Post-Conflict Research Center in Sarajevo.
Intern Linda Zheng published a country report on current genocide denial in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Genocide Alerts were published for Venezuela (written by Alexandra Sharp) and the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (written by Tom Shacklock). Intern Fiona Neibart published a report on
Myanmar’s on-going genocide against the Rohingyas.
Developed by intern Sarah Kane, Genocide Watch utilized its MailChimp license to send
updates about its Genocide Alerts, its virtual projects, and its new educational resources via a new
bi-weekly newsletter sent to member organizations in the Alliance Against Genocide, to key policy
makers in the US, UK, Europe, and the UN, and disseminated to our subscribers.
Revitalization of the Alliance Against Genocide:
Genocide Watch has never tried to build an organizational empire. Our purpose is to be a catalyst to
encourage the organization of anti-genocide organizations around the world, and to coordinate a
network of those organizations, the Alliance Against Genocide.
Chief Operating Officer, Vanessa Cardenas, worked with Alliance Coordinators Olivia Dudley and
Julia Sierra to revitalize the Alliance Against Genocide by creating a new website to be launched
this Fall. The Alliance has 68 active member organizations in 30 countries. The new Alliance
website will be used to disseminate communications by Alliance members through direct links to
their Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and other social media.
In addition to the new Alliance website, intern Lauren Salim has created an Alliance
newsletter disseminated to Alliance member organizations highlighting their most recent work.
We are planning a virtual meeting of the leaders of all Alliance member organizations this Fall.
With gratitude,
Dr. Gregory H. Stanton
Founding President